


Under Neon Lights

by fragilelittleteacup



Category: Almost Human
Genre: ALMOST HUMAN IS A ROMANTIC COMEDY STARRING JOHN AND DORIAN AND THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD'VE ENDED, Bar, Cliche, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Romance, Undercover, this is corny as SHIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 00:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7913020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilelittleteacup/pseuds/fragilelittleteacup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John notices stuff (like how gorgeous Dorian is), and Dorian also notices stuff (like how shit John is at being subtle).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Neon Lights

 

 

It worked a little too well.

Dorian leaned against the bar, elbows planted, shoulders rounded, upper body at ease in a way that was too human, too inviting, too sensuous to be fair. The planes of his back, strong and sloped, were painted with colourful lights from overhead, and the curve of his neck creased as he looked up to grin at the bartender. He lifted his glass– _another,_ he said, voice not raised high enough to be heard above the music, smiling lips forming the word slowly. The woman refilled his glass with a smile of her own, and John swallowed hard.

They hadn’t heard about DRNs here; hadn’t wanted to. This was a Luddite community, one of the few that had managed to stay purely tech-free.

Or, so they’d thought.

Dorian was here to monitor the town, scan it, and find the hacker that was hiding somewhere in this dusty spit of ancient history. They served plain drinks here, bitter and hard, on sticky bar tables with too-bright neon lights overhead. The place was filled with leather jackets and tartan, animal heads on the wall from the days when hunting hadn’t been outlawed. Children ran around the place, some sitting with their parents at the bar tables, drawing in colouring books. John, seated in a booth, watched one of the families with a happy crease to his smile. This reminded him of his dad. Of simpler days.

Then he looked back at Dorian, and he remember that these were not simple days. These were days of technology, of blood teeming with nanobots, of synthetic artificial limbs, and the awkward precipice between being human and _technically_ being a cyborg. No more dad to shelter him from the new tech, the screens that floated, the pets that scanned your brain and detected your mood. These were the kinds of days where things were complicated.

The kind of days when you could fall in love with a machine.

Dorian turned from the bar, coming towards John, and John looked down into his beer, swallowed hard. He didn’t want to see the slow sway of hips, the quirked grin, the top few buttons that were tantalisingly undone. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to see Dorian playing a human, because Dorian did it so _well–_ even though he _wasn’t._

And John hated knowing he wanted him regardless.

“I’ve found him,” Dorian said, quietly, grinning as if he were telling a joke, for the benefit of nearby Luddites who were suspicious and unused to visitors, “He’s two blocks from here, hiding in a motel basement.”

Dorian raised his glass, and John clinked it in a fake toast.

“What’re we still doing here, then?” He asked, gruffly, though he already knew.

“Playing the part, John.”

“Yeah?” John lifted his drink, the rim at his mouth, “And what part’s that?”

Dorian put on a show of considering the question, pursing his lips. “Travelling lovers?”

John coughed into his beer, bent over the table a little. Dorian smirked, amused. John thumped on his chest and glared, heart beating too fast. He stared at the pattern of the wooden table for a while, concentrating on breathing deeply, heat rising to his cheeks.

 _It was a joke,_ he thought, _just a joke, John, goddamnit. Get a grip._

 “You tryin’ to kill me, Dorian?” He asked, voice rough, when he eventually got his breath back. He straightened up, glared, and put his best game face on. He could deal with this. He'd gotten over Valerie, he could get over Dorian. He could, and _would_.

“Now, darling,” Dorian said slowly, running his tongue over his lower lip in a way that was probably meant to seem obstinate, but _really_ just seemed sexy, “don’t be so cold.”

John stared, openly.

Dorian raised an eyebrow. "John?"

“You’re an asshole.”

“...Why am I am asshole, John?” Dorian’s eyebrows came together in an expression of blatant confusion–an expression that John hated, because Dorian looked so innocent; he knew nothing except what he slowly was able to figure out, despite his innate ability to apparently see _everything._ "John?"

John looked down at his beer and mumbled something even he couldn’t understand.

"I don't understand your reaction." Dorian paused. “Your heart rate is elevated. Why are you nervous?”

“Shut up.” John scrambled, trying to find an excuse, a reason, a cover. “Can we even get through one night without you scaring the crap out of me, or scanning one of my body parts? Or, now that I mention it, _multiple_ body parts–I mean, what is your deal, dude? Do you not get how privacy works? You know, this is the issue with technology these days-”

“Do you have romantic feelings for me, John?”

It was quite possible that the world stopped.

John stared at him, and Dorian stared back. Dorian’s blue eyes were unflinching, boundless, and so, so mesmerising. The lights overhead coloured him delightfully, and he looked so fucking beautiful that, for some absurd reason, John opened his mouth and said, “Yeah.”

Dorian blinked.

It wasn’t a human reflex, and it caught John off-guard. Dorian didn’t blink. Dorian didn’t need to.

Then John realised what he’d just said, and he felt sick.

“Really?” Dorian asked, and John stood.

“I’ll see you back in the car.”

“John-”

“Just stay here, alright, I’ll-”

Dorian’s hand closed around John’s wrist, and next thing John knew, he was being turned around, a hand on his neck, holding–he reacted, a hand automatically reaching for the gun on his belt-

Dorian kissed him.

It was different than a normal human kiss. It was smoother, and had no taste. But it was _Dorian_ who was kissing him, so John lingered for a moment, breathed in against smooth skin, and then pulled away, eyes too wide, face too hot.

Dorian was smiling. Big, happy, euphoric. He was _beaming._

“I’m glad, John.”

John blinked. He _was_ a human, after all, and he was entitled to this kind of confusion. “You…”

“Yeah, John.” Dorian pulled his wrist closer, in a way that was endearingly innocent, the way that androids sometimes were when they were experiencing new things, and John knew, he just _knew_ that this wasn’t at all connected to the case. This wasn’t playing. This wasn’t an act.

The bar around them had gone silent with shock. John looked around, cheeks hot, and realised they were getting a few glares; Luddite communities were outdated, after all, in both technological and ethical advancements.

“You got a problem?” He barked. Most of the bar went back to their drinks.

John looked back at Dorian, and felt his stomach spark, in a way it hadn’t for a long time, when he saw a warmth there he’d never expected was anything else except friendship.

“We should,” he found himself saying, voice quiet, “um, we should. Go.”

Dorian smiled wider, white teeth bright, blue eyes shining. “Yeah, man. Let’s go.”

As they left, John kept a grip on Dorian’s smooth hand, and his chest was tight. The desert landscape outside greeted them, dim with a warm afternoon sun, and he felt like he was running away, escaping into the night like when he was a kid, running off from school with someone he liked. He looked over at Dorian, and found himself leaning forward, taking that beautiful face between his hands, and kissing deep. Dorian didn’t quite know what to do, more than chastely kissing back; he held onto John’s jacket, a hand on his chest, and John could see the blue lights flickering even from behind his eyelids.

“The case,” Dorian breathed.

“Yeah,” John agreed.

They kissed some more, though, under that neon light.

Just a little more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wish this show never ended...


End file.
